LINDSAY, Jack and STEPHENSEN, P. R. ( editors ). The London Aphrodite. Number 1[–6 ( all published )].

LINDSAY, Jack and STEPHENSEN, P. R. ( editors ). The London Aphrodite. Number 1[–6 ( all published )].Produced Not for Profit, but for the Fun of the Thing, Obviously LINDSAY, Jack and STEPHENSEN, P. R. (editors). The London Aphrodite. Number 1[6 (all published)]. London: The Franfrolico Press. August 1928[July 1929]. Six volumes. Publishers printed wrappers (respectively on pale green, coral, blue green, lilac, beige, and grey paper) with illustration of faun astride a winged horse to upper cover, vol. I with round inkstamp per copy 2 nett. to front

Produced ‘Not for Profit, but for the Fun of the Thing, Obviously’

LINDSAY, Jack and STEPHENSEN, P. R. (editors). The London Aphrodite. Number 1[–6 (all published)]. London: The Franfrolico Press. August 1928[–July 1929].

Six volumes. Publisher’s printed wrappers (respectively on pale green, coral, blue-green, lilac, beige, and grey paper) with illustration of faun astride a winged horse to upper cover, vol. I with round inkstamp ‘per copy 2/- nett.’ to front cover; I: pp. ‘64’ (i.e. 66), photo-graphic reproduction of The London Aphrodite by Lionel Ellis facing p. 2; II: pp. [65]–160, plate after p. 66; III: pp. [161]–232; IV: pp. [233]–316; V: pp. [317]–400; VI: pp. [401]–496; woodcut to head of each title-page, vols I, II, III, IV, and VI with photographic plate after title; some creasing and mild discolouration to spines, small chip to upper joint of vol. VI; a very good set; contemporary bookplate of C. A. G. Cuthbert Keeson to inner front covers.

A complete run of this short-lived, humorous literary journal produced by the Franfrolico Press in London – first established in Sydney as Australia’s first private press.

The first issue announces that there would be only six issues, published bi-monthly, and features an editorial manifesto setting out the journal’s aims in ‘equally [outraging] the modernist and the reactionary. It is certain that J. C. Squire and T. S. Eliot, Wyndham Lewis and Dean Inge, Humbert Wolfe and Robert Graves, E. E. Cummings and Alfred Noyes, Maritain and James Douglas, Roger Fry and William Orpen, would, if compelled by physical force to read our magazine, heartily (or at least irritatedly) dislike it’ (p. 2).

There are numerous contributions by Philip and Jack Lindsay – the latter contributing a par-ticularly scathing condemnation of Eliot (‘Waste of Time. Or, T. S. Eliot of Boston. A Yawn’, pp. 224–27) – as well as by Kenneth Slessor, Robert Nichols, Liam O’Flaherty, James Pittendrigh Macgillivray, and Aldous Huxley, who contributes two sonnets, ‘The Pergola’ and ‘Sheep’ (p. 166), seemingly their first appearances in print, predating their inclusion in Arabia Infelix (1929) and The Cicadas, and Other Poems (1931).

Provenance: with the bookplates of Lt Col. Cuthbert Alfred Garnet Cuthbert Keeson (d. 1968); Keeson was awarded a Military Cross for his service as Captain during the First World War and was Commanding Officer of the Queen Victoria Rifles from 1934 to 1938.

Eschelbach & Shober 582 and 605; Ransom, Franfrolico 22.

SKU: 2124839